Quoting laxboeingman (Reply 5):Were they always supposed to come back on a B777 or is it because they won.

Teams do not contract for a specific aircraft type, they contract for the carriage of x passengers from A to B. Whoever gets the contract picks a plane from their fleet based on their operational needs. Might be a 767 one way and a 777 the other.

Quoting fsnuffer (Reply 11):Why did they hug the coast and not go direct? To avoid the Eglin MOAs?

Looks like a routing with an aircraft w/o overwater equipment. However, other flights on that route today are taking the same route.
Is this normal as today's MIA-DFW flights are going over the gulf, overhead MSY, then continuing straight to DFW. MIA-IAH flights go over the gulf, just souoth of MSY before turn west to IAH.

I was out to welcome them home and I definitely saw a 772 takeoff on R/W10. I got a pic from a distance, not up close as I hoped to

Does anybody know the tail number of the 777?

Also I was looking at the routing and normally the flights just fly right out over the gulf. The only thing I can think of is that the military was conducting exercises out over the gulf and therefore needed to route all commercial flights along the coast.